The views expressed here are mine. I am publishing these on behalf of the people of the Isle of Thanet. If you wish to contribute please comment or send an email. pleasuramasecrets@yahoo.co.uk
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Wednesday, 3 August 2016

The gift that keeps on Giving

Today the latest on Companies House shows a charge secured on the recently acquired Freehold (Land Registry ref K838703) by a company registered in Panama. Another well known tax haven but also infamous for hiding the details of ownership from us lesser mortals. In this case however they may have made an error because all charges are now available for download from Companies House. And guess what? Who owns Mintal none other than the moneyman Colin Hill first identified as behind this lash up in June 2013

So it seems that promises made by Cabinet members verbally have been wiped out by people far cleverer than the TDC officers tasked with ensuring everything is above board. Now it seems there are two stories doing the rounds firstly that Colin Hill has stumped up the £3M so the freehold can be purchased and along with the £5M already invested has increased his stake to £8M. The Second story, which I favour, is that far from actually buying out Keegan/Hill Mike Stannard has done a deal with Colin Hill and still owes Hill £5M which had already been invested into SFP Ventures (UK) Ltd and that sum is what Hill wants to protect hence the charge on Cardy Ramsgate Ltd.

What is abundantly clear is TDC complete on the sale of the Freehold thereby absolving themselves from any further interest in the ownership of the site. Now all they have to do is hope the Development Agreement to build is watertight and that Mike Stannard can actually build out the site because if he cannot the ball is firmly back in TDC's hands assuming they have a watertight Development Agreement. (Something they have a poor track record of enforcing)

Interesting choice of lawyer to witness especially to those that followed the Ezekiel trial.

Details of the last unaudited accounts by Keegan's accountants no less

Any further news I will add to this later
Council Statement
"
Thanet District Council can confirm that the sale of the former Pleasurama site on Ramsgate seafront completed on Wednesday 20 July 2016 with Cardy Ramsgate Ltd.
The council has received the monies from this sale.
The site has transferred to the south-east based firm who will be responsible for delivery of the scheme.
Once complete, the development is set to include a hotel, residential apartments, leisure/retail facilities, cafes, shops and a playground. This is in line with the existing planning consent.
The scheme is expected to employ up to 200 people. This would include opportunities during construction and jobs in the hotel trade, commercial units and in the servicing of the residential areas.
The council understands separately that Cardy Construction Ltd. has filed a notice of intent to appoint an administrator. The council does not have any further information in relation to this process at this stage.
The Sale Agreement for the site was completed on 13 March 2015. This marked the exchange of contracts binding the council to complete the transfer of the land.
As with the original development agreement, the council retains ownership of the cliff wall and completed works here in April 2016."

Last May this is what an FOI asked
Dear Thanet District Council,
Please provide details of any payments the developer(s)/buyer(s) of the Royal Sands Development, Ramsgate is/are contractually bound to pay Thanet District Council as per any legally extant planning permission, development agreement, contract of sale, memorandum of understanding OR any other document which might contain this information.
Where payments have or will be made please provide the following information for each amount:
(a) Name of organisation providing the payment (b) Purpose of payment (c) Date funds paid/will be paid to the council (d) Details of any conditions attached to payment
Yours faithfully,

and the response

Thank you for your communication received on 15/04/2015 where you requested information about contractual payments regarding the Royal Sands Development.

I apologise for the delay in responding to your request, it is the councils intention to publish this information once the legal process concludes so this information is exempt under section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act and is therefore being withheld.

Whether anyone believes the current statement from TDC or not it hasn't gone nearly far enough to answer the above FOI.

Anon 13:04 Who said Cardy have gone bust? nothing on Companies House. They say they are looking for an administrator for one of their many companies. A lot of building firms do this and get away with it.

Colin Hills, Shaun Keegans son in law, now has a 3 million quid beneficial interest in the freehold TDC said they did not want him to get hold of ???

Well played Colin Hills.

Presumably if the cliff face collapses he will sue the backside off TDC ? Then if the cliff face is made safe on retreat TDC will own a strip of land at foot of cliff ? And the value of the freehold site will increase ??

Yes Anon 21.51 that is rather my point. Colin Hill has outplayed TDC at every step and set fair to make a profit. Well played. Looks to me like TDC are shafted

I am not predicting this but if Mr Hill commissions a survey on the cliff and tells TDC "This simply will not do TDC please carry out the following works before we authorise further building on our freehold site"

And suppose they specify 10 million quids worth of cliff safety work. And TDC say "Ouch". Letter to TDC "Well you shouldn't effing have granted planning then should you dullards now get your cliff fixed it is a hazard to our planning consented freehold"